Automatic closure for elevator-hatchways.



No. 682,858. Pateted Sept. I7, i901.

.1. IILMCGHEE. I AUTOMATIC CLUSURE FOR ELEVATOR HATCHWAYS.

(Application led. Apr. 2 2, 1901.)

J. W. MCGHEE.

Patentd Sept. I7.. |901.

AUTOMATIC CLOSUBE FOB ELEVATUR HATCHWAYS.

(Applicltion tiled Apr. 22, 1901.-)

2 Sheets-Sheet 2. 1d ,z

W/ness es la ry Inven'or:

Jahn mwa/.ee

mi ,wams PETERS im4 Pno'ruurno.. wnsnmoron, mc.

UNITED f STATES v PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN W. MCGHEE, OF ADRIAN, MISSOUR.

AUTOMATIC CLOSURE FOR ELE-VATOR-HATCHWAYS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 682,858, dated september- 17, 1901. v Application filed April 22, 1901'I Serial No. 56,944. (No model.) l

To all whom t may con/cern: l

Be itknown that I,JOHN lV. MCGHEE, a citizen of the United States, residing at Adrian, in the county of Bates and State of Missouri, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Automatic Closures for Elevator-Hatchways, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to automatic closures for elevator hatchways or shafts; and it consists in certain novel and peculiar features of construction and combinations of parts, as hereinafter described and claimed.

As is well known, elevator hatchways or shafts when unobstructed by providing passages for the spread of the iiames are frequently responsible for disastrous conflagrations, which otherwise might have been confined to a single building or, perhaps, to a singie floor, and also are the cause of many accidents serious to the occupant-s of the cage, which would not have occurred had the fall of the cage been confined to the height of a single story or less.

The object of myinvention, therefore, is to reduce the chance of loss to life and property from the causes mentioned by providing hatchway-doors at each landing which shall be opened by certain appurtenances on the elevator-cage and automatically closed as the cage passes, and by providing instrumentalities for manipulation by the operator Where by the device attached to the elevator-cage for opening the doors while descending shall be thrown to inoperative position, and thus cause thecage to fall upon and be sustained by the closed doors of the landing just below.`

My object, furthermore, is to provide means of the character mentioned which are positive and reliable in action, easily operated, and of simple, strong, durable, and cheap construction.

In order that the invention may be fully understood, reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings, in which- Figure 1 represents a side elevation of an elevator-cage (broken away for want of space) provided with an appliance for opening the hatchway-doors it successively encounters in ascending or descending, said ligure also showing portions of the hatchway-doors in the act of opening. Fig. 2 is a front view of the same. Fig. 3 is a horizontal section of a building, taken in a plane justbelow the landing and showing the hatchway-door in its closed position. Fig. 4 is an enlarged section of the elevator-cage and the mechanism for permitting the door-opening instrumentalities to be thrown to inoperative position. Fig. 5 is a vertical section taken on the' line V V of Fig. 3.

As the construction at each landing is pre cisely similar a description of the mechanism at one landing will suffice for all, similar reference characters designating corresponding parts in all the figures.

l designates the corner-standards of an elea vator-hatchway. A rectangular frame, com= prising side bars 2 and end bars 3,' is preferably provided and secured to said cornerstandards between the ceiling and floor of the landing, it being understood that the floor of the landing in the case of a building already equipped with an elevator will have to be torn up and provision made to receive this frame or its equivalent in order to provide space for the operation of the hatchway-door. 4 designates cross-rails connecting the end bars of said frame and supported at their middle, preferably, in a bearing 5,' attached to the usual elevator-guides 6.

7 designates the door-sections, the same being of sheet metal suitably strengthened and formed at opposite sides with loops S,loosely surrounding railsa, for a purpose which here-v inafter appears. At opposite sides of each loop 8 the doonsections are provided with grooved rollers 9, resting upon said rails and mounted in'brackets l0, riveted to the doorsections, said rollers sustaining the weight of the doors and enabling the latter to be shifted back and forth with a minimum of friction, as will be read-ily understood. The doors are provided with the registering notches, which provide an opening 1l, through which the elevator-supporting-cable (not shown) runs, and at opposite sides of said opening and at their meeting edges they have registering notches,

forming openings l2, each notch being provided with an antifriction-roller 13, for a pur-v pose which hereinafter appears. To return the door-sections to their closed position and hold them there, thefollowin'g mechanism is provided at each corner:

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14 designates a bracket secured to the corner-standard, and 15 a grooved pulley journaled therein, with its lower edge slightly above the horizontal plane of the door and overlapping the contiguous corner thereof, as shown most clearly in Fig. 3. A second grooved pulley 16 is supported from the standard, with its inner edge vertically over the corresponding edge of the first-named pulley, said pulleys, however, having their axes extending at right angles to each other. A cable 17 extends over pulley 16 and has a weight 18 attached to its outer end. Said cable also engages pulley l5 and is attached at its inner end to an eyebolt 19 on the linderlying corner of the door. When the door is open-viz., when its sections are in the positions shown by dotted lines, Fig. 3-the weight is elevated, and the cable extends horizontally from the lower edge of pulley 15, the weights by gravity effecting the reclosu re of the door when no longer opposed.

The means for eecting the automatic opening of the door consists of a pair of V-shaped frames projecting from the upper and lower sides of the elevator-cage 20, the upper set of frames being numbered 2l and consisting, preferably, of a pair of Wood bars 22, arranged together to form a V, and provided at their outer sides with metallic wear-strips 23, said frames being connected rigidly together by cross-bars 24. The lower set of frames are numbered 25 and 26, respectively, each consisting of wood bars provided with metallic wear strips like those above described, but diifering from the latter in Athat they are capable of folding, frame 25 comprising a short stationary portion 27, depending from t-he elevator-cage, and a lower portion 28, hinged to portion 27, as at 29, so as to fold inwardly. Frame 26 also embodies a stationary portion 30 and a movable portion 31, hinged to the stationary portion, as at 32, the difference in said frames consisting simply in the fact that the stationary portion 30 is somewhat longer than the stationary portion 27 in order that portion 31 may conveniently fold up against and under portion 28, as indicated approximately by the arrows, Fig. 2, and in order to insure that portion 28 shall fold first the following mechanism is provided.:

33 designates a semispherical casting dcpeuding centrally from the bottom of the elevator-cage and provided in its under side with a cavity 34, registering with a deeper and smaller cavity 35, the latter communicating with the side slot 36.

37 designates a tapering plug fitting slidingly in cavity 35 and normally projecting below the base of cavity 34, so as to provide practically an annular groove therein, said plug being secured to the inner end of a lever 38, fulcrumcd on the casting, projecting through slot 36, and pivoted at its outer end to the lower end of a vertical bar 39, extend- Y ing up through the bottom of the elevatorcage and carrying a footpiece 40 atits upper end, a spiral expansion-spring 41, interposed between said footpiece and the bottom of the elevator-cage, holding the plug in the position shown in Fig. 4 with a yielding pressure.

42 designates V-shaped braces for frames 28 31, said braces extending convergingly upward and having their lower ends hinged, as at 43, to said frames, and their upper ends provided with rounded heads or enlargements 44, fitting in the annular groove provided conjointly by the cavity and said plug, the dislocation of said braces being prevented because of the tendency of said frames 28 31 to collapse inwardly in the direction indicated by the arrows, Fig. 2, under the power of the following mechanism:

45 designates rods pivoted to the bottom of the elevator-cage and extending divergingly downward and loosely through eyebolts or guides 46 on the hinged frames, and mounted upon said rods and secured at their opposite ends to the bottom of the cage, and the movable sections of said frames are springs 47 and 48, the former being preferably stronger than the latter and used in conjunction with frames 28 in order that the latter shall be first folded when resistance to said movement is removed, said springs being of such character, however, that they are adapted to contract only until the movable sections of the frames have assumed the position approximately shown by dotted lines'a, and b of Fig. 2, further upward movement of said frames being yieldingly resisted by said springs for the purpose of providing cushions, which will eliminate, as far as possible, all jar or shock incident to the dropping of the elevator-cage upon the door when closed.

In practice, assuming that the parts are in the position shown in Fig. 3, it will be seen that in the ascent of the cage the upwardlyprojecting frames 2l act as an entering Wedge upon rollers 13 and force the door-sections from the position shown in full to the position shown in dotted lines, Fig. 3, and in order to eliminate wear on the cage by the travel of said rollers up and down its front and rear faces the metallic wear-strips 23 are preferably extended, as at 49, along the front and rear faces of the cage as a track upon which said rollers may travel. In the descent of the elevator-cage the depending wedge-shaped frames perform their function in a manner precisely similar to that above described and open the doors, the weights in each case of course closing the doors as the cage passes. In case the elevator-cage should start to fall from any cause the operator by stepping upon the footpiece 40 elevates plug 37, and therefore removes practically all resistance to the action of springs 47 48. The latter therefore retract and swing frames 28 3l upwardly, bars 42 of course swinging down out of cavity 34 and out of the Way. The action of springs 47 48 is so quick, however, that by the time the bars are disengaged' from said cavity 34;

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they are slid outwardly past each other, it being necessary that they shall pass (see Fig. l) to prevent conflict, which would arrest the collapsing movement of portions 28 3l of the frames. By the time the movable portions of the frames have attained the positions shown by dotted lines, Fig. 2, the retractile action of the springs has ceased, and they are ready to act as cushions for the impact of said movable portions of the frames upon the hatch way-door, said frames striking said door at an angle and being forced upward nearer to the horizontal position, to which action the springs, as explained, offer a yielding resistance. By striking the door in this manner it is obvious the cage will be arrested, and in consequence there will be practically no possibility of injury to the occupants. By reason of the fact that the draft from one iioor to another up through the shaft or hatchway is cut off it is obvious that tire cannot attain the headway it otherwise would, and the chance of total destruction of the building and others inthe vicinity will be greatly lessened.

From the above description it will be apparent that I have produced an automatic closure for elevator hatchways or shafts, which embodies the features of advantage enumerated as desirable in the statement of invention, and it is to be understood that while I have illustrated and described the preferred embodiment of the invention it is susceptible of modification in various particulars without departing from the spirit or scope or sacrificing any of its advantages.

Having thus described the invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. In an apparatus of the character described, the combination of a hatchway-door, composed of sections adapted to move in opposite directions, an elevator-cage provided with a pair of upwardly-projecting wedgeframes,and a pair of depending Wedge-frames, the latter comprising stationary and folding portions, downwardly-diverging rods pivoted to the bottom of the cage and extending slidingly through said folding portions, coilsprings upon said rods and attached at their opposite ends to the cage-bottom and said folding portions, means to hold said folding portions in alinement with the stationary portions, and means to trip the rst-named means and permit said springs to swing said folding portions toward each other, substantially as described.

2. In an apparatus of the character described, the combination of a hat-chway-door, composed of sections adapted to move in opposite directions, an elevator-cage provided with a pair of upwardly-projecting wedgeframes,and a pair of depending wedge-frames, the latter comprising stationary and folding portions, braces pivoted to said folding portions and holding them apart, means to trip said braces and means as the braces are tripped to swing said folding portions inward, substantially as described.

3. In an apparatus of the character described, the combination of a hatchWay-door, composed of sections adapted to'move in opposite directions, an elevator-cage provided with a pair of upwardly-projecting wedgeframes,and a pair of depending wedge-frames, the latter comprising stationary 'and folding portions, a casting secured to the cage provided with a cavity in its lower side, a reciprocatory plug projecting from above into said cavity, upwardly-converging braces pivoted to said folding portions and having their upper ends engaging said 'cavity and plug, a lever pivoted in said casting engaging said plug, a spring-elevated footpiece pivoted to said lever, and springs for swingingl said frames inward as the braces are tripped by .the elevation of the plug, substantially as described.

4. In an apparatus of the character described, the combination of a hatchway-door, composed of sections adapted to move in opposite directions, an elevator-cage provided with a pair of depending frames, each frame comprising a stationary and a folding portion, a casting secured to the bottom of the cage, a plug tting in said casting, braces pivoted to said frames and detachably engaging said casting and plug, means under the control of the operator to withdraw said plug and thereby effect the disengagement of the braces from the casting, and means for holding said frames upward toward the bottom of the elevator when the disengagement of said braces takes place, substantially as described.

5. In an apparatus of the character described, the combination of an elevator-cage provided with upwardly and downwardly projecting wedge-shaped frames, a door, comprising a pair of sections notched toform an opening to receive the suspension-cable and to provide openings to receive said frames, and provided also with loops 8 and grooved rollers 9, cross-rails 4 extending through said loops and under said rollers, grooved rollers l5 supported near the corners of the hatch- Way, grooved rollers 16 supported above and disposed at right angles to rollers l5, cables engaging rollers 16, and extending downward therefrom, the inner strands of the cables engaging the front and under side of rollers 15 and attached to the outer corners of the doorsections, and vertically-moving weights attached to opposite ends of said cables and adapted to effect the automatic closure of the door-sections, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in the presence of two witnesses.

JOHN W. MCGI-IEE.

Witnesses:

D. F. ANDES, O. L. MILLS.

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